Often, when marketing managers need remote content marketing help, they want to find the right professional and get them started quickly. For most of them, the ideal contractor to meet content writing demands is a strategic content writer because of their specialized skills.

A strategic content writer is a professional writer with a strong editorial background and an in-depth knowledge of content marketing strategy who can combine both to write compelling content for your content marketing program.

These are real content marketing consultants who can fill the content marketing talent gap for your company by providing excellent written content. Their overall marketing fluency and business acumen usually mean they can begin to produce quickly with little learning curve, especially if they have subject matter expertise in your business sector. While there are often many expectations placed upon them from the beginning of each project, they typically can meet them. However, they still need your help to succeed.

Because they are consultants not “just writers,” they generally will ask you a series of general questions to gain a solid understanding of your business. They may ask about your perception of your firm’s brand identity, its market position, who your key customers and competitors are, about your executive team, your annual revenue, your overall marketing objectives, and other questions to form a picture of your business in their mind. That usually happens during the interview process for the consulting contract.

The challenge is once this initial process is over, many clients assume they’ve answered the necessary questions to get the strategic content writer started. However, that may not be true when it comes to the particular content marketing program on which they’ll be working. Strategic content writers begin with the end or outcomes in mind for each project. So, they need more in-depth information for that particular project, which will come from your content marketing plan.

Specifically, there are five key questions, shown in the infographic below, for which they will require the answers for each content marketing program. Your answers will help them to create the content you need to integrate into your content marketing program, which in the long run, makes your job easier.

Strategic content writing consultants want to succeed in their projects. They want to satisfy clients and establish long-term relationships with them. Because these specialized content marketing professionals can be difficult to find, particularly in certain business sectors, that’s ideal for both the contractor and the client.

That means answering these questions clearly and early on will help ensure the content you get from your strategic content writing consultant fits seamlessly into your content marketing plan. That also will lead to a more positive overall experience for you and your remote content marketing professional.

(c) 2016-2017. Dahna M. Chandler for Thrive Writing, Inc., a division of Thrive Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This article may not be reproduced in whole or in part without express written permission of the author.